Mildred cocked her head. She reminded him of someone. She regarded Charlie with curiosity, a simple gaze that could never understand him. She reminded him of Mut. “My mother—her name is Hannah—she’s always had a great sense of fun,” he said. He left this here as if sizing up how exactly to get the elephant through the doorway. “Here’s an example. When we needed to go somewhere, let’s say she needed to bring her mending to a customer, she would make me guess how we were going to get there. And I would guess the underground first, because the tube frightened me and I loved it so much, and she would say, ‘No, not the tube.’” He paused. “Is this boring?”

“No,” Mildred said.

“And I would guess the bus, and Hannah would say, ‘No, not the bus,’ and we would go on like that, taxi, on foot, cart, phaeton, carriage, and it would get sillier and sillier, and she would say, ‘You haven’t asked if we’re going by riverboat yet,’ and I would ask, ‘Are we going by riverboat?,’ and she would say, ‘No, of course not, we’re not going by riverboat,’ as if that was the most ridiculous thing she’d heard, and I’d ask about sedan chairs and bicycles, and finally, when I was laughing so hard I couldn’t stand it, she would say, ‘Charlie, I’m going to blow a soap bubble, and we’ll step inside it, and we’ll travel to Covent Garden by soap bubble.’” This had been a long story. He didn’t know if it was a good one. So his eyes flicked to Mildred, who was watching him with her fingertips over her mouth, the way she might watch someone juggling on a highwire.

He used his hand to brush her fingertips from her face. Since she allowed him, he positioned her hands at her side.

“Did she ever do it?”

“Pardon?”

“Did you and she ever travel by soap bubble?”

He wished for a bright light to examine her by. It was the question of a child who has grown out of believing in fairies, but who nonetheless suspects that on certain occasions, when the disappointments of the adult world are somehow suspended, perhaps a man in a foreign city, a pooka, long ago, just once, by means that could be explained if only she knew more about the universe, might have traveled by soap bubble.

He continued to move her arms about, waiting for the moment when she would resist. He placed her hands on her hips, elbows out. His voice was raspy, as if he had been talking for days. “My mother is in a hospital,” he said. Which was just like saying, “I’m seventeen,” and so he said, “It’s more of a clinic, it’s a resting place for the insane. She’s actually quite mad. Put your hands behind your head.”